ARMM governor says his region not trash bin for PNP bad eggs

DAVAO CITY—The highest ranking official of the country’s only functioning autonomous region pleaded to the Philippine National Police to stop treating the region as a trash can where rogue members of the police force are to be thrown.

Mujiv Hataman, governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), asked the PNP leadership to reconsider its plan to assign policemen suspected of involvement in crimes and drugs to the region as a form of punishment for their misdeeds.

Hataman, in a statement, said he received reports that four policemen from the Visayas would be transferred to the ARMM because of their involvement in the drug trade.

According to Hataman, he was informed that three officers from the Bacolod City police and another from the Negros Occidental provincial police force were ordered transferred to ARMM.

The four police officers are among 13 earlier linked to the drug trade. The allegations against them, however, are still being validated.

“The ARMM regional government has been exerting all efforts to rid the region of corruption and to implement relevant reforms for its people,” the governor said in the statement.

“The region confronts issues such as poverty, hunger and the rise of terror groups, and we need the best of our country’s police, [not] the worst,” Hataman said. —NICO ALCONABA